Two weeks has flitted by seemingly in the blink of an eye. We drove north to Wicklow in the space of a two and a half hours, dropped our ever-increasing luggage at our friends place then motored into Dublin to return the rental car. Never quite such a feeling of relief as we have returning a rental car in one piece and not getting fleeced by the car company for any real or imagined damage. Phew! Back to our base in tiny Crehelp (near Dunlavin, which is near Blessington, which is near Dublin - well only an hour away). It feels like more than a year since we were last in Wicklow and it's wonderful to be back - they're even having a proper Autumn here as they were less affected by the hurricane and storm - that is, they still have leaves on their trees. This means the trees are raining down tears of gold and there'll be a lot of scenic drives undertaken during our stay!

Our first night was Halloween and we were inundated with local ghosties, ghouls and witches (and oddly a couple of kids dressed as Irish rugby players. Frankly, not as scary as kids dressed as All Blacks - but that's my kiwi-ness talking). Lots of treats were handed out and no tricks were played (no pointing upsetting the goose that lays golden eggs). In order to be home and ready to receive the denizens of Dunlavin, we had a 4 pm dinner with our friends down at The Hollywood Inn (in Hollywood of course... just the best name). Such an early dinner it was still off the lunch menu - we indulged in a shared entree of their signature dish 'Smokies' - smoke fish in a cream & cheese sauce. Lucky it was shared - utterly wicked and so delicious.

Since our arrival, as expected, we've been out and about - in fact it's a bit of a rule, even if it's freezing and so long as the sun's shining, we're into the car with a picnic lunch and hitting the road. Our favourite jaunt is just 30 minutes away - the Monastic settlement of Glendalough (remember 'Glen-da-lock'). Why? There's a great boardwalk/track that's an easy 3 km walk and super-scenic. Between the drive and the walk this keeps us amused for a couple of hours, lots of fresh air and sunshine, then home to turn the central heating on lickety-split. Our friends have just finished renovating their bathroom (big claw foot bath tub included), the house is toasty warm and there's screeds of hot water to fill the tub to the brim - not to mention an enormous feather filled sofa and Netflix... ahhh - true homebodies. On the subject of Netflix... we've just started 'Breaking Bad' - obviously 5 something years after the rest of the world...but loving it. Also big fans of 'Designated Survivor' - though season 2 is still being released one episode at a time - sigh... Yeah, Yeah... seriously first world problems.

(PS - last year a fox turned up. Obviously named him Foxy. He's been hanging about for a year now and only vamoosed in the last couple of weeks. We now have the pleasure of watching 'Nutkins' liberating the birds' peanuts - huge fun!)